Greene . . . stepped away from the stand [with the hidden robotic owl] and stood by the home's backdoor. He pressed the fob of a modified garage-door opener. The curtain dropped, unveiling a taxidermied northern pygmy owl. Its robotic head moved from side to side, as if scanning for its next meal. [At that moment, the] yard hushed, then erupted in sound. Soon birds arrived from throughout the neighborhood to ornament the branches of a hawthorn above the mobbed owl and call out yank-yank and chick-a-dee . . . . [Later at] his laboratory on campus, Dr. Greene plugged the recording of the pygmy owl fracas into a computer that he likened to an "acoustic microscope." The calls appeared as a spectrogram - essentially musical notation . . . . One call lasts only a second or three, but can have up to a dozen syllables . . . . [And size matters:] black-capped chickadees embed information about the size of predators into these calls. When faced with a high-threat raptor perched nearby, the birds not only call more frequently, they also attach more dee's to their call. [But not necessarily big size:] Raptors tend to be the biggest threat to birds nearest their own size because they can match the maneuverability of their prey. So a large goshawk might only merit a chick-a-dee-dee from a nimble chickadee, while that little pygmy owl will elicit a chick-a-dee followed by five or even 10 or 12 additional dee syllables . . . . [Moreover,] "squirrels understand 'bird-ese,' and birds understand 'squirrel-ese.'" When red squirrels hear a call announcing a dangerous raptor in the air, or they see such a raptor, they will give calls that are acoustically 'almost identical' to the birds.

I'm not sure what this adds up to so far as animal language in general is concerned, but I am surprised that squirrels mimic bird calls - and vice-versa, I suppose. This article at least shows that some sort of communication is embedded deeply in various 'lower' species, so the possibility that 'higher' species - such as dolphins, orcas, sperm whales, and elephants, not to mention various apes - might engage in relatively complex language is all the more likely.

Why, this might even support the otherwise incredible possibility that human beings can communicate intelligibly, though the preponderance of evidence is much against it.

About Me

I am a professor at Ewha Womans University, where I teach composition, research writing, and cultural issues, including the occasional graduate seminar on Gnosticism and Johannine theology and the occasional undergraduate course on European history.
My doctorate is in history (U.C. Berkeley), with emphasis on religion and science. My thesis is on John's gospel and Gnosticism.
I also work as one-half of a translating team with my wife, and our most significant translation is Yi Kwang-su's novel The Soil, which was funded by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea.
I'm also an award-winning writer, and I recommend my novella, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer, to anyone interested.
I'm originally from the Arkansas Ozarks, but my academic career -- funded through doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships (e.g., Fulbright, Naumann, Lady Davis) -- has taken me through Texas, California, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, and Israel and has landed me in Seoul, South Korea. I've also traveled to Mexico, visited much of Europe, including Moscow, and touched down briefly in a few East Asian countries.
Hence: "Gypsy Scholar."